The invention relates to a target positioning device, in particular for a lithography system, comprising a carrier for carrying a target, and a stage for carrying and moving the carrier along a first direction. The invention furthermore relates to a method for driving a target positioning device, in particular for a lithography system.
In particular for lithography systems which are designed for providing a sub-micron pattern on a wafer, any manipulation device for moving the wafer is designed to control the position of said wafer with high precision. Consequently the stages for use in lithography systems are designed to provide an extremely rigid and mechanically stiff construction. Usually highly accurate, rigid and robust stages are used, which take up a large amount of space.
Lithography systems are usually arranged in a clean room. Since floor space in a clean room is expensive it is disadvantageous when an apparatus has a large footprint. This drawback usually is accepted in order to obtain the required high precision.
In addition, electromagnetic dispersion fields as commonly present at the actuators of the stages, in particular from electro-magnetic actuators, are not desired a charged particle beam lithography system as for example disclosed in WO 2010/021543, because any variation in electric or magnetic fields may affect the position of the charged particle beam. In order to reduce the effect of the actuators of the stages, the actuators which are used to drive the target in a first direction during the projection of a charged particle beam onto the target is arranged remote from the stage. According to WO 2010/02153, the actuator is arranged in a direct line of the first direction and at a distance from the stage. The actuator comprises a push-pull rod which connects to the stage. Due to this set-up, the footprint of known target positioning device is large, in particular in the first direction.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an alternative target positioning device of high accuracy, which has a reduced footprint and thus requires less space in a clean room.